Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

---

If you liked this concert, please drop a like + subscribe to our channel! Thank you ♥
__________________________________________________________________
Danzón No. 2
Music by Arturo Márquez
Conducted by Eli Gilbert '24

Featured Soloists:
Clarinet – Jalen Li '23 (0:03)
Oboe – Sophie Dauerman '25 (0:43)
Piccolo – Ashley Su '24 (3:14)
Piano – Eric Gan '25 (4:23)
Cello – Jeremy Ng '26 (4:32)
Violin – Liam Barthelmy '25 (4:32)
Flute – Ben McDonough '24 (5:45)
Trumpet – Genevieve Kim '26 (6:42)
__________________________________________________________________
~Biography~
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950) Navarro is one of the most celebrated Mexican composers of his generation. Márquez was exposed to the salon music and dance forms of his native Mexico from a young age by his father and grandfather, both musicians, which influenced the development of his compositional style. Among Márquez’s works are several ballets as well as orchestral and chamber works, including the nine Danzones for which he is most well known. The international success of Danzón No. 2 has led to the increased recognition of Márquez’s works around the world, and especially in Latin America.

~About the Work~
The idea of writing the Danzón No. 2 originated in 1993 during a trip to Malinalco with the painter Andrés Fonseca and the dancer Irene Martínez, both of whom are experts in salon dances with a special passion for the danzón, which they were able to transmit to me from the beginning, and also during later trips to Veracruz and visits to the Colonia Salon in Mexico City.

From these experiences onward, I started to learn the danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline, and to listen to the old recordings by Acerina and his Danzonera Orchestra. I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occurs in the State of Veracruz and in the dance parlors of Mexico City.

The Danzón No. 2 is a tribute to the environment that nourishes the genre. It endeavors to get as close as possible to the dance, to its nostalgic melodies, to its wild rhythms, and although it violates its intimacy, its form and its harmonic language. It is a very personal way of paying my respects and expressing my emotions towards truly popular music. Danzón No. 2 was written on a commission by the Department of Musical Activities at Mexico’s National Autonomous University and is dedicated to my daughter Lily.

–Biography by Eli Gilbert '24
–Original Program Notes by Arturo Márquez